


Snow Song

by thesadchicken



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Neelix just wants everyone to be happy, Vulcan Language, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28218348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesadchicken/pseuds/thesadchicken
Summary: Neelix’s attempt to make his friends happy backfires. This is a story about friendship, happiness and snow.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway & Neelix, Neelix & Tuvok (Star Trek), The Doctor (Star Trek) & Neelix
Comments: 13
Kudos: 14
Collections: To Boldly Gift: Fics 2020





	Snow Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Homo_Vulcanensis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Homo_Vulcanensis/gifts).



> Written for the holiday fic exchange: “To Boldly Gift” 2020.  
> English Translations in end notes.

_Morale Officer’s personal log, stardate 25278.6. After our recent encounter with the Borg, Captain Janeway decided to land_ Voyager _on an uninhabited M class planet in the Ymayn System. The ship is in dire need of repairs, and the crew’s morale could use a boost too. I suggested all crew members indulge in their different winter customs and traditions, to have fun and chase away the gloom._

Neelix leans against the counter as he pours Captain Janeway a nice hot cup of coffee. “I’ve been to almost every winter celebration on the ship; Solstice, Eid al-Fitr, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Mardi Gras, Ōmisoka, Kal Rekk, _Ram nI' tay_ _…_ I even participated in the Bolian Sleepless Night ritual.”

“That’s wonderful, Neelix,” the Captain smiles, although he can tell from the way her eyes follow the slow descent of the coffee into the cup that she’s a little distracted.

He waits for her to take her first sip, watching as she brings the cup to her lips and sighs happily, eyelids fluttering closed. When she opens her eyes again and looks at him, he knows he has her full attention.

“Everyone’s having a good time. Everyone except for…” he leans in closer, whispering, “…Tuvok and the Doctor.”

“I’m not surprised,” Captain Janeway nods. “The Doctor’s been working day and night in sickbay ever since the attack, and Tuvok…” She takes another sip of her coffee. “Well, Tuvok is Tuvok.”

“So you do agree, Captain; they need a few days off. The problem is, they just won’t listen to me. I’ve tried to talk them into getting off the ship for an evening stroll—the scenery is fantastic—but you know how difficult they can be.”

“Don’t worry about that. Leave it up to me,” she winks at him.

*

Tuvok and Captain Janeway walk into the transporter room right on time. Neelix throws his hands up in the air in despair. “I thought I told you to lose the uniform!” he tells Tuvok. “This is supposed to be casual and fun. Our good Doctor got the message.”

Neelix gestures towards the Doctor, who is already standing on the transporter platform, wearing a large faux fur coat. Tuvok simply raises his eyebrow.

“Don’t worry, Neelix,” the Captain says, amused. “I doubt the hat I knit for Mister Tuvok is Starfleet-regulation. _Technically,_ as long as he’s wearing it, he won’t really be in uniform.”

She hands Tuvok a light gray knitted hat. He takes it reluctantly, although the shadow of a smile plays at the corner of his lips.

“Keep those ears warm, Tuvok,” Captain Janeway smiles, gently patting her friend on the shoulder before leaving the transporter room.

The sudden silence is deafening. Neelix isn’t entirely stupid: he knows neither of his transporter companions wants to be here. But he knows they need it, after weeks of hard, stressful work, and he wants to make them happy.

“Okay everyone. All aboard!” he says cheerfully, sliding behind the console to punch in the coordinates.

Tuvok shoves the hat in his pocket and gets on the platform right next to the Doctor. They exchange a weary look.

“Do we really have to?” the Doctor whines.

“Captain’s orders, I’m afraid,” Neelix grins, hurrying to take his place on the platform. “Don’t you worry about a thing, Doc; this is going to be fun.”

“That, Mister Neelix, is precisely what I’m worried about.”

“Energize!”

When the transporter chime fades, they find themselves in the middle of a snowy meadow; a proper winter wonderland. Their breath flies up in puffs of mist as it meets the icy air. The snow crunches under their boots, and the trees—old wind-battered things—reach for the sky with branches thick enough to carry all three of them.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Neelix sighs happily.

Tuvok sighs too, but “happy” isn’t exactly the right word to describe it. It’s more of a huff, really, and if Neelix didn’t know better he’d say his Vulcan friend sounds annoyed. The Doctor, on the other hand, does nothing to conceal his irritation. He grumbles moodily as they make their way across the meadow. They walk for a while in total silence, and at first Neelix thinks it isn’t so bad. They get to appreciate the landscape. It’s relaxing.

But after a while, he feels it’s a little _too_ relaxing. Bordering on boring. He wants to make his friends happy, but with these two that tends to be frustratingly difficult. They walk a while longer, reaching a big rock formation with a little path just below that promises to make things interesting. Encouraged by nature’s little gift, Neelix starts humming to himself. Soon the humming turns into singing—a fun little Talaxian tune about winter—and if the snow hadn’t been so deep he might have danced, too.

“What have I ever done to Captain Janeway?” the Doctor mutters.

“Excuse me?” Neelix asks, not because he hasn’t heard, but because he’s not sure he understood.

The Doctor isn’t looking at him; he’s staring at the sky dramatically, as if the answer would write itself in bold letters on the clouds. “Have I offended her, somehow? Have I been remiss in my duties? Why is she punishing me?”

Neelix can’t help it: he bristles at the sarcasm. He understands it’s difficult for some people to open up, but when someone goes out of their way to let you know just how loathsome your company is to them… well, it hurts. And it makes him angry.

“I think you better go back to the ship, Doctor,” he says, sternly.

The Doctor stops dead in his tracks. “You’re dismissing me?” he scoffs. “After dragging me all the way out here?”

“You’re ruining our excursion,” Neelix stops too, turning to face the EMH. “Come back when you’re in a better mood.”

“ _Come back?_ Oh no, Mister Neelix, I am certainly not coming back, especially not when I’m in a better mood.”

“If the Doctor is leaving, I shall beam aboard as well,” Tuvok says a little too fast, like he’s been waiting for the opportunity to escape.

Neelix purses his lips, nodding slowly. He’s beyond disappointed. He’s actually really upset, and wounded, and not quite sure if he should even bother expressing these feelings because obviously no one here cares about him at all.

“Fine,” he shrugs. “Leave. Go ahead. I’ll continue without you two.”

He half expects them to protest, or maybe just hesitate. But they don’t. They turn around and start walking away. It’s so embarrassing and frustrating and Neelix feels his anger building up, bubbling to the surface until he really can’t contain it—it all comes spilling out in a cry of rage as he kicks the base of the rock formation with all his might.

The first thing he feels is the pain in his toes. He jumps around on one foot, wringing his hands. Then he feels a tremor running through the ground. He freezes, whiskers twitching, and looks up at the rock formation. With a crack loud as thunder, the snowy slopes split in two and start moving. They’re slow as first—beautiful, almost—sliding down, shimmering like a river in spring. Then they gather pace, rushing towards the ground with a terrible rumble.

“Look out!” Neelix screams.

Tuvok is fast, grabbing the Doctor by the back of his coat and pulling him out of harm’s way. The avalanche is violent, quick, loud. There’s an explosion of white, snow against snow, cold powder flying up in the air, and it makes the world around Neelix vibrate and swirl. Then it ends, just as quickly as it started. For a minute, everything is blurry. Neelix stands motionless, panting; terrified. Then the snow settles and he sees Tuvok and the Doctor, safe and sound, only a few paces ahead.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“We are uninjured,” Tuvok replies. “However, we will not be able to return the way we came.”

Neelix stares in dismay at the solid wall of snow blocking their way back to the ship. “I don’t know any other way,” he whispers.

Tuvok taps his communicator, but it only chirps miserably in response. “Something must be interfering with our communications system.”

Neelix feels his stomach lurch. He doesn’t have time to panic though, because the Doctor takes a few steps forward and says, “I have an idea. Set my holo-emitter to activate in thirty seconds, then throw it over the snow. You should be able to do this effortlessly, Tuvok. I’ll go back to the ship and get help.”

“A logical solution,” Tuvok nods.

Neelix feels utterly useless, watching as the other two tinker with the holo-emitter for a few minutes. Then, with the Doctor’s permission, Tuvok deactivates it, holding it for a second in the palm of his hand. He reaches his arm back and throws the tiny device as far and as high as he can, muscles rippling under his uniform. His Vulcan strength sends the holo-emitter flying far above the wall of snow blocking their way. It lands on the other side, where they can no longer see it.

“Now, we wait.”

The waiting part isn’t really that bad, except Neelix is deeply unhappy, and every moment spent out here only makes him feel worse. He sits down in the snow with a grunt. It’s his fault, all of this. First he made Tuvok and the Doctor leave the ship, then within an hour he managed to annoy them both, and to make things worse he lost his temper and caused an avalanche. Now some young ensign is going to have to leave the comfort of their quarters to come and save them. By trying to make two people happy, Neelix has just made three, possibly four people miserable.

Tuvok is busy observing the thick wall of snow. Neelix sighs heavily. He knows he overdid it. He shouldn’t have pushed and pressured his friends into this excursion, or asked the Captain to make them go. The truth is, more often than not, he feels worthless. That’s probably why he lost his temper. Everyone else has proper duties; everyone else is valuable. But Neelix isn’t Starfleet-trained, he doesn’t have any special abilities and he isn’t particularly intelligent, like Kes or Seven. Sometimes he feels like a leech, clinging to _Voyager_ and its valiant crew but giving nothing in return; and they humour him, because they’re kind and compassionate. He’s supposed to be the ship’s morale officer, for Texilar’s sake, but he can’t even do that right.

“I’m sorry, Tuvok,” he says, although he’s not sure if the Vulcan is listening. “I shouldn’t have pressured you into this. I just thought… You’re always working, working, working, and I know everyone else thinks you’re indestructible but after that last Borg attack even a Vulcan needs to unwind. You’re out here, so far from home, and I just…” He hesitates, because Tuvok isn’t one for tearful confessions, but this is important. “I worry about you. I don’t want you to feel alone.”

Silence. The wind whispers in the trees, making the tallest branches sway this way and that. For a moment, Tuvok is impossibly still, and Neelix thinks he might not have heard him after all. But then he moves, turning slowly, heels sinking into the snow. He sits down next to Neelix, graceful as ever, and looks up at the pearl-white horizon.

“When I was a child,” Tuvok says softly, “my grandfather taught me an old Vulcan song about cold weather.”

Neelix looks up, momentarily distracted from his misery by this strange change of subject. He listens quietly, too curious to interrupt.

“The poet and lyre-player who composed it,” Tuvok continues, “was called T’Vela, of the Vuch’t’nala house. She travelled to Andor, where she saw snow for the first time, and it inspired her music. At the time, relations between Vulcan and Andor were strained; this song was considered controversial, but today it is a symbol of peace.”

And then, the most unexpected thing happens. Reaching into his pocket, Tuvok grabs the knitted hat given to him by the Captain, pulls it on his head and starts singing. _Actually_ singing.

_“Nam-tor ish-veh eshikh t'le-suma  
Nam-tor ish-veh suk heh herbosh  
Nam-tor rai-vel hi hizhuk tra'  
Heh shaht-fam wan-kur_

_Hi min-tor yel haul-kur svi'shi t'kin-kur_  
_Heh nam-tor igen weh-eik la'  
Tevan-tor goh veh minan izh-wef fi'ku t'nash-veh_

_Nam-tor nash k'lalatar prkori if uralal Surak pa'”_

It’s so beautiful that Neelix doesn’t even laugh at the way one of Tuvok’s ears sticks out of his hat. He just stares, awestruck, not knowing what to say.

“It’s beautiful,” he breathes. “I don’t know what to say.”

Tuvok looks down at his hands. The silence isn’t uncomfortable this time. Neelix understands what this is; an offering, a truce. An apology, too. Tuvok just shared something very intimate and personal, something only friends are allowed to know. It’s incredibly heart-warming, but Neelix knows better than to ruin the moment with sentimentality. He respects Tuvok’s need for detachment in situations like these.

But he can’t help the smile that spreads on his face.

They sit there for a while in companionable silence, Tuvok’s lovely song lingering in the air. Eventually, they get up to stretch their legs, and somehow they end up hurling snowballs at each other. Neelix accidentally starts it when he absent-mindedly kicks some snow and it gets all over Tuvok’s uniform. Instead of raising his usual disapproving eyebrow, the Vulcan simply reaches down, gathers some snow and throws it at Neelix.

It isn’t really a snowball fight, because it’s broken up by long periods of reasonable conversation, but every now and then a snowball crashes into someone’s back, or arm, or face, and Neelix’s laughter echoes in the icy cul-de-sac. He has to be reminded to keep his voice down—“I would rather not experience another avalanche, Mister Neelix”—but there’s a twinkle in Tuvok’s eye the entire time they’re stuck there.

When they hear a transporter chime, and the snow blocking their way is beamed elsewhere, Neelix is almost disappointed. But his toes and fingers are starting to freeze, and he knows a warm bath would do him a world of good. They march back to the ship in high spirits. Captain Janeway and the Doctor meet them halfway there.

“Gentlemen,” the Captain claps them both on the shoulder. “I hope we haven’t kept you waiting too long.”

“On the contrary, Captain,” Tuvok says.

Neelix perks up at the remark. “Admit it, Mister Vulcan: you did end up having fun.”

“As I have told you many times in the past, Mister Neelix; Vulcans do not ‘have fun’.”

“But if they did?”

“They do not.”

“Hypothetically?”

“It is illogical to hypothesize on the impossible.”

“Oh, I see.”

Silence. Then a slight raise of the eyebrow, and Tuvok says, “But… were I a member of a species capable of such emotion, I would indeed have ‘had fun’.”

**Author's Note:**

> *While Eid al-Fitr (Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan) isn’t exactly a _winter_ holiday, some years we do celebrate it in winter, because of the shifting nature of the lunar Hijri calendar.
> 
> ⋆
> 
> Song translation:
> 
> _Nam-tor ish-veh eshikh t'le-suma  
>  _ **It is a desert of ice  
>  ** _  
> Nam-tor ish-veh suk heh herbosh  
>  _ **It is vast and empty** _  
>   
>  Nam-tor rai-vel hi hizhuk tra'  
>  _ **There is nothing but silence  
>  ** _  
> Heh shaht-fam wan-kur  
>  _ **And endless white**
> 
> ⋆
> 
> _Hi min-tor yel haul-kur svi'shi t'kin-kur  
>  _ **But the sun glints silver instead of gold** _  
>   
>  Heh nam-tor igen weh-eik la'  
>  _ **And the sky is wider here** _  
>   
>  Tevan-tor goh veh minan izh-wef fi'ku t'nash-veh  
>  _ **A single shimmering snowflake lands on my palm**
> 
> _Nam-tor nash k'lalatar prkori if uralal Surak pa'  
>  _ **This is the infinite diversity that Surak sang about**
> 
> ⋆
> 
> ° I started learning Vuhlkansu a while ago, and the [Vulcan Language Institute](https://web.archive.org/web/20180323145555/http://vli-online.org/) as well as the [VLD](https://www.starbase-10.de/vld/) have been very helpful throughout the years.


End file.
